


That Song the Caged Bird Sings

by Ink-and-stars (AriasOfSnow)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Birds, English, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriasOfSnow/pseuds/Ink-and-stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongdae is not like Baekhyun; he wasn't born inside a cage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Song the Caged Bird Sings

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [La Canción del Pájaro Enjaulado](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/203971) by arias-of-snow (aka ink-and-stars in English). 



> This is a translation of a drabble of mine that was originally written in Spanish, and that can be found both in my Spanish Livejournal account (arias-of-snow) and it my English one (ink-and-stars). The translation is not really beta-ed, so please mind the typos :'D

**That song the caged bird sings.**

  
The velvet curtains close and Baekhyun's voice grows quiet, fading into a throwing, dull pain somewhere in his throat. The room beyond the silver bars of his cage is becoming increasingly empty - his Master's guests never stay for long after a performance has ended - and the air is cold, too chilly for the delicate silken robes covering him to bring any warmth or comfort.

It's not long until they come for him, once the last visitor has left the room; servants dressed in grey that take him out from his cage and lock him up in a different prison, replacing ornate silver bars for rusty iron, the velvety satin from the upper floors for the old stone walls of the slave chambers in the cellar.

Jongdae is there already, curled up on his usual corner, his back against the rear bars of the cage. His cotton clothes are torn and tattered, recent whip marks still raw on his skin.

"You sang for _them_ again," he accuses, his voice scornful, as soon as the servants leave them alone.

"And you refused to do so, right? You told them you wouldn't sing. You tried to put up a fight once more," Baekhyun calmly replies, allowing himself to sit on the opposite side of the cage, still covered in white silk and smudged dark make-up; still freezing and utterly alone. "They'll grow tired, if you keep this up. They will end up killing you."

"Maybe I'd be better off dead after all _."_

Jongdae is not the same as Baekhyun - he wasn't born inside a cage. He was sold instead, in his late teens, as payment for the debts his family fell into. He has known the light of the sun on his eyes, the caress of wind on his skin, the spring grass under his bare feet. He was free once, and doesn't quite understand that he is little more than an object now, precious and valuable but someone else's property after all - the same as the paintings in the ballroom or the statues in the hall. And it could be worse, much worse. They live in a cruel world after all, in a world where you can be born a Game Arena Slave, or a Bed Slave, in a place where one of them can be killed only because their Master feels bored and finds their screams amusing. Baekhyun was born like this, and Baekhyun _knows_ , but Jongdae has tasted what lies beyond the cell bars and tries to rebel himself against reality, resisting to assume his fate as it is.

"I don't understand how you can do it," he insists then, still trembling because of the lashing, and Baekhyun wonders how much the whip marks hurt, how much they pain him. "I don't know how you can let them dress you as their little doll boy and go out to sing for them. I don't know how your voice can even come out."

Baekhyun shrugs.

"I just close my eyes and sing."

"I know that. It's the same as always, right? Always the same. Singing is the only thing you _do."_

That's the other fact Jongdae can't understand. How can Baekhyun sing, incessantly, at all times; sing praises to nature, to the wind, the sun and the mountains, when those are things he has never been able to see up close, things that don't belong to him. How is he able to do so with a passion that makes his Master's noble guests cry, that even succeeds in making his cold and stoic owner - with his frown in his face and his whip in his hand - smile for a little while.

Jongdae doesn't know that Baekhyun has been passed, sold from master to master since he was a child. That every single one of his owners fell in love with the pitch of his voice at some point and ended up despising him in a matter of weeks because of the lack of emotion in his songs. They cherished him at first and screamed and hit him after, when Baekhyun looked up at them with a spark of defiance behind his eyes. He neither knows that his current Master is and always have been the worst of them all, so despicable that even his own son hates him.

That son himself was the one who came running to him years ago, his first night there, clumsily hiding bandages and bread under his own clothes, whispering apologies for the way his father's whip had marked Baekhyun's pale skin.

"He is disgusting," he had said. "That man."

"Aren't you the same as him?" Baekhyun had blankly replied. It seemed obvious: his own parents had been slaves, just as he was, songbirds locked inside of golden cages. This boy, with his big eyes and childishly regretful expression, was the son of a nobleman, a member of the same aristocracy that kept them all prisoner and threw away the keys.

It was logical, clear as water, but still the boy denied it, vehemently shaking his head.

"No. I am not like him. I swear to you, I hate him. More than anything else. I am sorry he did this to you."

That boy was the youngest son of his owner - Young Master Park Chanyeol. He was the one who gave Baekhyun a reason to sing, who gave him wings to fly.

"Talk to me about the outer world," Baelhyun used to demand, his voice hushed, every time Chanyeol would quietly sneak away to his silver cage in the music room before a performance, while his father's guests were having dinner, or when there wasn't anyone else in the slave chambers in the cellar and he came down to see him, interlocking their fingers through the iron bars. "Tell me what's beyond this place."

Chanyeol had told him about the mountains, about the woods and the water, he whispered how lively the city was against the skin of his ear, and talked about the blue waves of the sea when he was about to fall asleep. And Baekhyun had never been in any of those places - it was forbidden, it was impossible - but he could almost see them, he could sing about them and move his audience to tears - the faint echo of emotion, of fear, of hope and longing in every note, every word.

So then and now Baekhyun sings to his dreams, with the raw hope of the caged bird, with his feet in chains and his wings broken. He sings to love, _for_ love, barely looking at the smiling figure among the crowd, standing close to his father and looking at him with big, warm eyes.

"I'll find the key. I'll get you out of here, I promise," Chanyeol repeats, night after night, and Baekhyun knows he is honest, he knows he is trying, so he closes his eyes and waits. Waits for the day the outer world would open for him, beyond the cage, for the day he can run away with Chanyeol, far away, forever. He waits for the day when he will have his cruel Master at his mercy and imagines himself killing him, slicing his throat open while he sleeps and watching the blood die the pillow red as he dies. He conjures, with a longing that is almost painful, the feeling of Chanyeol's lips on his skin, soft under the layers of silk and chiffon that conceal his body, and wonder how father and son can be that different, how can he hate one of them and love the other so much if they both share the same blood.

He doesn't understand and he doesn't want to, so then and now Baekhyun keeps waiting, with his hand and feet enchained and his head low. And Jongdae doesn't understand a thing, he wouldn't be able to, because even though they share a nightmare and a cage, they are not the same.

Because Jongdae's voice, that was once free, is a desperate cry of agony. And Baekhyun's songs, out from the lips of a prisoner, are a freedom call.

 

  
_I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,_  
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,  
When he beats his bars and would be free;  
It is not a carol of joy or glee,  
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,  
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –   
_I know why the caged bird sings._

**Paul Laurence Dumbar**   



End file.
